From Hugh Browne 17 May 1872
Nottingham
17 May 1872
Dear Sir
The following note in Moore’s diary may be worth your notice as an hereditary peculiarity—6 Moore’s Memoirs by Russell page 46.—1
“In talking of handwriting & its being sometimes hereditary, Brougham2 said he had found some of his gr father’s which exactly resembled his own, tho’ the gr father had died before he was born & his father’s writing was altogether different.”—
Your prophesy as to our family color blindness comes true—3 a few days since my brother Michael brought his eldest boy—2 years old—& boasted he had not had it, the boast was hardly uttered when the lad looked at a band in my wifes dress & pronounced it blue—4 It was rose color.—
It is surprising how many fail at a distance to distinguish the scarlet flowers or fruit of japonica5 from the leaves— I cannot.
Please don’t waste your time in replying unless you want something that I can supply.—
Yours truly | Hugh Browne
Chas Darwin Esq | Down Beckenham Kent
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Moore, Thomas. 1853–6. Memoirs, journal and correspondence. 8 vols. Edited by Lord John Russell. London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans.
Summary
Sends quotation from Thomas Moore’s Memoirs [ed. Lord John Russell, (1853–6)] about hereditary peculiarity in handwriting.
On colour-blindness in his family.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-8336
- From
- Hugh Browne
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Nottingham
- Source of text
- DAR 160: 332
- Physical description
- ALS 2pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 8336,” accessed on 24 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-8336.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 20